Good News From Ukraine

May 28, 1995

Here's a tip for the Kiev tourist office: Plaster signs all over town saying, "Lenin doesn't live here anymore." That's the exciting development President Clinton discovered on his stopover earlier this month in Ukraine's capital.

In contrast with our deepening controversies with Russia over sales of nuclear technology to Iran and its bloody military campaign in Chechnya, U.S.-Ukrainian relations highlight an underpublicized success story of democratization in post-Soviet politics.

A salute, therefore, is in order for the Clinton White House and State Department and for the government of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Ukraine traditionally suffers a Chicago-style "Second Soviet" syndrome, so overshadowed was it by Mother Russia in the now-defunct USSR. This despite the fact that Ukraine was the breadbasket, steel belt, coal country, warm-water port and VIP vacation retreat of that grim communist union.

More to the point is that Ukraine, a nation of 62 million in an area the size of France, possesses the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world--but only until December 1996.

How many nations would negotiate away an entire nuclear arsenal--and with it a claim to superpower status? Wisely and bravely, Ukraine did.

Early in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, Washington used too much stick and not enough carrot, White House insiders now concede. Washington pushed Kiev hard on disarmament, but without establishing a broad foundation for long-term good relations. That, fortunately, has been corrected.

Ukraine has become the fourth-largest recipient of U.S. aid, behind Israel, Egypt and (ahem) Russia; Washington pledged $900 million in aid and technical assistance to Ukraine for 1994 and 1995.

A few problem areas: The infrastructure of economic reform is fragile. And Ukraine remains pitted against Russia over division of the former Soviet fleet in Black Sea ports, and over Crimea, with its ethnic Russian majority.

In good spirit, Ukraine has vastly improved on a vile legacy of religious intolerance and has not shied away from making a tough decision to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear complex. The government hopes to open an international research institute nearby, but massive donations will be needed from outside powers for dismantling and cleanup of the reactors.

In that, as in the other areas of Ukraine's drive toward tolerance, democracy and the market, the government in Kiev should be supported.